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USAFâ€™s Secretive X-37B Lands Successfully

LOS ANGELES—The U.S. Air Force X-37B spaceplane landed at Vandenberg AFB, California, on Oct. 17, completing a record-setting 675 days in orbit.

The end of the third Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-3) mission comes as the Air Force prepares its second X-37B for a return to space. The Air Force operates two of the Boeing-built vehicles and last flew the second on a mission that concluded at Vandenberg in June 2012 after 469 days in space.

The winged X-37B, which at 29-ft. in length, resembles a scaled-down space shuttle, was first flown into orbit on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle in April 2010. The purpose of the first OTV-1 mission, like all subsequent tests, remains unknown. The Air Force denies speculation that the vehicles are designed to test advanced space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems or actively engage, capture or disable other craft. Instead it says the X-37B is designed as a flying technology testbed.

While the precise purpose of the long-duration flights remains something of a mystery, the orbital path of the vehicles has been tracked by ground observers from the first mission. For OTV-3, which was launched on a ULA Atlas V in December 2012, the orbital height was reportedly lower than the previous missions at around 218 mi., while its path ranged from 43.5 deg. north to 43.5 deg. south.

OTV-3 may also be the last X-37B to land at Vandenberg. The Air Force commented in July that the X-37B’s yet-to-be confirmed fourth mission could land in Florida at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility. Boeing has begun work to modify a former space shuttle processing facility at the site for X-37B refurbishment and will complete the work at the end of this year.

Discuss this Article 1

Oh yeah...not to monitor, disable or engage other nations' spacecraft while in 24/7/366 orbit as an ultrafast-response LEO ISR combat asset? Right, we're just doing a few long duration tests. This isn't the optionally manned space fighter you're looking for. Now go on about your business. Uh, no. Sorry, but you've misled us and bait-&-switched your product as far as you are going to get away with.
This opaque, uninformative dull USAF-press-release-style "article" is an excellent demonstration of just how far New Owner Penton has diluted and rendered worthless the once-matchless AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY brand. Instead of being informed of red-hot Flight & Space technology breakthroughs accompanied by deep analysis as soon as consistent with the National Interest, we poor foolish subscribers have had our subscription prices doubled, our number of valuable, archivable print issues HALVED, and our e-mailboxes overstuffed daily with insultingly repetitive, impossible-to-organize "newsletters" sent every few hours (why not? electrons are free) that contain no new real content beyond that of any random free industry or OEM news-aggregator e-publication. Certainly not anything that would give us as subscribers any competitive or in-depth informational advantage above the general public. The valuable Defense & Space Intel cutting-edge content we once gladly paid for with our 3-figure yearly $ubscription$ is now locked away under some sort of 4-figure insanely priced "AWin" sub-brand, safe from the prying eyes of ordinary loyal wide-field-of-interest AW&ST subscribers. Compare & contrast the above "article" (which reveals NOTHING novel or informative about the X-37B or its design/missions/ objectives) to the freely available internet competition, available for ZERO cost. I've been an AW&ST subscriber for decades, but I do know when I'm being fed plume vapor & fumes at filet mignon prices. Compare this "article" above (that we just paid over $100 for) with THIS FREE superb analysis of the X-37B's future role in the LEO battlespace, which ledes off:
"The U.S. national security space community is implementing its 2011 strategy for protecting space capabilities as a result of the perceived increase in threat posed by the development of counterspace capabilities among potential adversaries."
"The strategy includes multiple elements for developing international norms of behavior, enhancing commercial and allied cooperation, increasing resilience and deterring and defeating attacks. New evidence suggests that the implementation effort... may include the development of active defenses and new offensive counterspace systems... The strategy also includes preventing and deterring aggression on U.S. national security space systems, and, should deterrence fail, defeating attacks on said systems." And it gets even better from there! CREDIT: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-end-of-sanctuary-in-space-2d58fba741a Sorry AW&ST, but when you locked ALL your "premium" content away behind those maddening padlock icons and HALVED the curatable, historic magazines I was paying 3 figures a year for... well, my perception of value received for the cost of a FULL AvWeek subscription just dropped by over 90%.
Congratulations!- you've taken the premier Av/Space information brand in its field and made it the "New Coke" of aerospace publications. The "new-e-format" announcement was nicely timed, too- only AFTER I had New-Year renewed my subscription did you reveal that I would be receiving half-value in my mailbox & an unmanageable mess of thin-gruel repetitive "newsletters" in my emailbox: just more junk spam to wade thru daily. I pity your next-year subscribers: with this trend, they'll receive nothing but a flood of digital advertising to spam their mailbox & ancient dusted-off "historical" articles about the Apollo program, while all the timely "insider" content your brand was previously known for is reserved for CEOs paying US $5,000/yr. It WAS a fine ride, but you can now stamp my further Reservations & Boarding Passes: DECLINED.

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